Worship Service 4-30-2006
West Glendale Baptist Church
Pastor Don Jones
Today’s service is going to be different. It has been specifically designed to teach and lead you in worship. The message has been integrated with the music and all that you need will be provided on the screens in the front. We have, over the past month, settled into a comfortable routine in our worship services. So much so, that at times I sense we have lost the awe and wonder of God and the purpose of why we are here.
Gordon Dahl said, "Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship." I fear that we, as a church may be falling into the latter category. I would like you to break out of your comfort zone this morning and encounter our living Lord.
Back in 1992 when the Dallas Cowboys were preparing to play the San Francisco 49rs for the NFC Championship in San Francisco, the Cowboys had a pep-rally at Texas Stadium. The audience cheered wildly for each player when he was introduced. The fans carried banners. They painted their faces and proudly wore blue- and white outfits. They tried to get autographs. Not one fan walked away saying, "That event was a dud. It did nothing for me." The event was a success, not because the performance was great (they didn’t play any football at all) or the player’s speeches weren’t inspiring (most of them weren’t very good speakers), but because everyone understood why they were there. The purpose was not to please the fans but to honor the team. The people walked away saying, "That was great! I hope the team understands how much we appreciate and support them!"
Why did you come to worship today? Was it to check on your friends? Was it to catch up with so and so and see how their week went? Are you trying to get some church business taken care of before it time for lunch? First and foremost we need to understand that worship is a choice.
Cue Slide I. Worship is a choice.
It is an act of the will. It is volitional. It is a matter of obedience to God. We must decide to sacrifice 60 minutes out of 10,080 minutes given us this week to God. That means that we turn off our cell phones, pagers, and I-pods and focus on Him. If you are unwilling to do that then you are in the wrong place and for your sake I would ask you to leave until you are ready to give God your complete attention.
In Psalm 95:1, David offers the invitation, "Come". David as God’s instrument offers us the choice to come, bow down and worship him. We have truly come into his house to worship Him.
Cue Song: We have come into His house. 224
Once we have made the choice, what is it that we are to do? David tells us in verses 1-2,
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
Cue slide II: Worship is praise and thanksgiving.
Our worship is to be a time of praise to our Lord and give thanks to Him for all He is and all He has done. Think for a moment what God has done for you. John 3:16 says he gave His only son for you.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Through Jesus we have finally been set free. We are free from sin, guilt, and worry. We are finally at peace with God. We now have a hope that will not fail. We can live our lives with joy and love because of what He has done for us. It is truly a time of praise.
Rod Cooper puts it this way. He says, "I used to be the chaplain for the Astros and the Oilers when I was in Houston, Texas. After I’d do a chapel, they’d give me tickets. One time in the Astrodome I watched Earl Campbell run over everybody, his own men included, to get to the goal line. When he got to the goal line, he put the ball down. The place went crazy. People were giving high fives and jumping around. The scoreboard went off. The same thing happened when the Astros hit a home run. It was a ringing shout, because their man scored a touchdown.
I’m not saying that when you come to church you need to give each other high fives or do cartwheels down the aisle, but worship is a time of anticipation and expectation. We come together because all week God has been knocking home runs and scoring touchdowns in our lives.
Worship is a time to celebrate what God has done for us."
We are to bring our praise to Him when we come to worship. It is our sacrifice, our offering to Him for all He has done for us.
Cue song: We bring the sacrifice of praise 213
Cue Song: Victory in Jesus 353
Cue song: To God be the glory 56
We must be careful in our approach to God that we do not approach Him with a cavalier or flippant attitude. Why? Because He is God and we are not. We must be careful that we do not lose our awe, our wonder, our reverence, and yes, our fear of God.
Cue slide: Worship is reverence, awe, and fear of God.
He is mighty and awesome. There is no other like Him. As we approach God in worship we must do so with respect and reverance. David says in verses 3-7,
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
A.W. Tozer in answering the question, "What is worship?" said, "Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven."
We must be willing to take the focus off of ourselves and focus only on Him. He alone is Creator, Almighty, Redeemer, Lord, the Holy One, our Rock and our Salvation, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, Abba, Father, and Jesus. We worship Him because he alone is worthy of worship.
Cue song: Worthy of Worship 153
Cue Song: Majesty 10
Cue song: Holy, Holy, Holy 3
Cue song: How great Thou art 147
Robert Webber says the following:
"We need to let go of our intellectual idea of worship and realize there is more to worship than a sermon; we have to let go of our evangelistic notion of worship and reckon with the fact that worship is not primarily directed toward the sinners who need to be converted; we must let go of our entertainment expectations and remind ourselves that we are not in church to watch a Christian variety show."
We have gathered together in worship to be met by God the Almighty. God, the Creator of the Universe, the One who sustains our lives, our Redeemer and King, is present through proclamation and remembrance. He wants to communicate to us, to penetrate our inner self, to take up residence within us.
And, as we go through the experience of meeting with him in this mystical moment of public worship, we are to respond.
Cue slide: Worship is responding to God.
But response is not just singing a hymn, not just saying a creed, not just saying a prayer. Response, from the very beginning of worship to the end, must be a powerful inner experience of actually being in the presence of God. When we sing a hymn or say a confession or prayer, we are not singing or saying words, but expressing a feeling, bringing our souls, truly responding and communicating to the living and active presence of a loving and merciful God. David said,
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
We are to bow down before Him, submit ourselves to Him, and ultimately respond. We respond to Him by giving out of the abundance of His blessings in our lives. Each week we take an offering.
Ushers come forward for offering.
While many see it is a means to support the church and the work of ministry, it is mainly a time of responding to Him by giving back a portion of what he has given us. It is the recognition that He is the center of our lives and not us.
William Temple made this clear in his masterful definition of worship: "For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose;and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin." In the course of worship, God will change our hearts if we will step aside and let Him.
Cue song: Change My heart O God 654
The ultimate sacrifice that we can make is to give up the control of our lives to God and allow Him to make us into what He wants us to be. It is to set aside all of our selfishness, ambition, and pride and admit that He is Lord of our lives. The Apostle Paul said in Romans 12: that,
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship.
We are to sacrifice ourselves in worship. Paul says that this IS our act of worship. Will you acknowledge today your need for His lordship in your life? Truly, until you come to Jesus, you cannot worship. Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) We offer at the end of every service the opportunity to give your life to Jesus during the singing of an invitation hymn. I urge you to come to Him today just as you are.
Cue song: Just as I am 488
